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The full title of this book is “Creating Christ: How the Roman Emperors Invented Christianity.” The authors claim that Jesus is a creation of Vespasian, Titus and Dominitian, the three consecutive emperors of Rome who also happen to be a family: Titus and Dominitian are sons of Vespasian. In support of this claim, they cite that: (1) the miracles performed by Jesus are similar to supposed miracles performed by Vespasian; (2) the logo of the anchor and a dolphin used by early Christians is similar to the logo used by these three and earlier Roman emperors; (3) it made sense politically given what happened at that time (explained below).

The authors also dismiss the official historical account that Romans persecuted the early Christians. They claim that Romans confused messianic Jewish rebels (their term) with Christians. The real Christians that followed Paul were in fact pro-Roman, but the Romans could not distinguish between these two groups, who both were waiting for a messiah. This confusion may have been further exacerbated by the fact that there was also a Jewish rebel living in Rome by the name of “Chrestus.”

The related historical and political background is that Vespasian and Titus were putting down the Jewish rebellion, which culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. In the aftermath that followed, it was advantageous for Rome to unite the Jewish ideology with their ideology under a new god. This was a common technique of the times. (For example, it is the same pattern that was used to establish the god of Serapis, as a political union of Greek and Egyptian cultures.)  Further evidence for this is that the Gospels have been dated to have been written around the same time.

The book suffers from insufficient editing, and therefore is hard to read. An improvement would be to write a historical background chapter, before delving into the thesis. Instead, the authors jump back and forth between historical facts and their thesis, which is confusing. For instance, every now and then, the authors remind the reader that Titus is the son of Vespasian. As a result, and given the nature of the thesis that it argues against a 2000-year-old entrenched belief, it is easy for readers to discount the whole work. I hope that someone will distill this exposition down to a more clear-cut one, because this theory stands to undercut the foundation of the Christian religion.

P.S. Because of the above shortcomings I have only read a third of this book.

/sb

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